


Trial and Error.

by ineffabledaniel



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Dan Howell, 2009 Era (Phandom), 2009 Phil Lester, Cute, Cutesy, Dan Howell/Phil Lester Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Young Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 16:15:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15644367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffabledaniel/pseuds/ineffabledaniel
Summary: 2009. Dan struggles a little with Hello Internet, queue cute and helpful boyfriend Phil helping Dan out. And of course, he's well loved by the whole internet.





	Trial and Error.

**Author's Note:**

> It's three am when I'm writing this and I never proof read so.. Good luck hehe

October 16th 2009.

 

Ever since June 21st, Dan had been talking to his idol and internet crush, AmazingPhil (or, Phil Lester). After spamming the YouTuber’s comments for close to a year, he finally got the attention he was hoping he’d get. Well in fact he got more. Over the four months the two boys had been speaking, they grew more and more attached to one another, and their love began to blossom around early September. One night (September 15th), during a sleepy Skype session, Phil surprised Dan. 

_ “Dan?” Phil whispered just after the younger boy said that he was going to try and sleep. Dan perked up a little, looking up at his laptop screen from his position, curled up under the covers on his bed.  
_ _ “Yeah?” He asked quietly, voice full of sleep and fatigue.  
_ _ “Can I ask you a question?” Phil continued, fiddling with his fingers out of view of the camera as he was pretty nervous to ask. _ _   
_ _ “Of course?” Dan replied, his own nervousness growing. He had no idea what Phil was going to ask, and to this day he didn’t know if that was because his sleepy state or if he was just oblivious.  
_ _ “Uhm. I know we haven’t met.. Yet. I know that it’s just been like.. Two months.. But-” Phil paused, biting his lip as he thought of how to phrase this. “Uh, would you like to be my boyfriend?” He asked, looking away from the screen due to pure fear of being denied. Though there was no need to threat, that one question momentarily took Dan out of his sleepy state. The eighteen year old sat up slightly, his eyes wide and tears welling. That was probably the best thing he’d heard for a while - aside from goodbyes from all his high school teachers on his last day.  
_ _ "Yes, Phil, of course!” Dan replied excitedly, but softly so he wouldn’t wake any sleeping family members. Phil looked back at the screen and felt his heart swell at the pure excitement and happiness he saw on his now-boyfriend’s face. He too also teared up.  
_ _ “Oh thank god.” Phil said, sighing and giggling in relief. “I-I’ll let you sleep now.” He added afterwards, a gentle smile on his face as he watched Dan settle back down into his comfortable, curled up position. “Goodnight, bear.” He finished, using the nickname he’d began to call Dan not long ago - the one he knew he loved.  
_ _ “Goodnight.” Dan whispered in reply, voice now returning to it’s sleepy state. “Love you.” He added, deliriously tired as his eyes fell heavy before shutting for him to sleep. The two little words caused Phil’s heart to go super fast.  
_ __ “Love you too..”

Now it was just under a month in, the two were still together and happy. That’s how they both liked it. They barely even argued and when they did it was about something really stupid. For a month now though, Dan had been mentioning making videos like Phil. He’d whine about how he has these ideas but has no idea how to actually go by putting them into an actual video. They had many facetime sessions where Dan was either: sat on his bed, fumbling with his fingers and ranting on about how he couldn’t make good ideas for videos or him worrying about the fact people won’t like his videos / or him pacing around his bedroom, hands either in his hair or folded across his chest as he rambled on about the fear of rejection or being mass hated on.

Phil always managed to talk him out of his panicked headspace by telling him that it was going to be okay, that he was good enough for it, that he just needed to take his time. There was something about Phil’s voice that always managed to calm Dan down. They would then change the subject only slightly. They’d then change the subject, but only slightly, talking about Dan’s video ideas and how he could put them into something. Or even about how Dan could edit the videos when they were done.

One morning in early October, Dan called Phil as soon as Phil was online - knowing that meant that his boyfriend has just woken up. The first call wasn’t answered however. But before Dan even had a chance to click call again, Phil was calling him once more.

“Hi!” Dan said, his face lighting up to see the sight of Phil. His boyfriend was sat on his bed, his duvery wrapped around his shoulders and his hair a bit messy from sleep.  
“Morning,” Phil began, voice heavy and groggy. “How’d you sleep?”  
“Pretty good.” Dan beamed, his own voice was light and bubbly. “You?”  
“Same here.” Phil smiled, nodding a little. “You seem excited, bear. What’s on your mind?” He asked, looking at his boyfriend on the laptop screen, his heart beating fast at how cute Dan looked when excited.  
“Oh! I thought of ideas for my video.” Dan responded, holding up a little notebook with ideas scribbled messily onto the front page. “Well, just one idea actually. One idea written out like five times.” He corrected himself, furrowing his eyebrows and shaking his head.  
“Oh yay!” Phil said, also now excited to hear these ideas. “Can you tell me some of them?” He asked hopefully, his eyes glimmering from the laptop reflection.

“Yes! Please!” Dan said, for once not worried. “So, my first one was like.. A video explaining what I would post, with a little comedy too to drag people in? Then there was another, a video that was just comedy, you know, to drag people in.  _ Or, _ a video simply just explaining what I’m gonna do. But that might be too boring, right?”  
“Not if done right.” Phil said softly, smiling. He was happy Dan had actually started to thoroughly think of ideas for his video. “I think your first idea is your best, love.” He said honestly and softly. “Because not only are you telling people who you are, you’re also showing them who you are too.” He proceeded, watching Dan nodded and agree on his screen.  
“Yeah, yeah okay,” Dan smiled, nodding and circling that one idea and scribbling over the other ones. “Also, I had an idea of the title. Hello Internet? Is that lame, boring? I thought it would be a little funny, because it technically is me just saying hello to the internet?”  
“No! It’s not lame or anything like that! I love that name. It’s perfect, the whole video is going to be perfect.” Phil reassured him.

The rest of that call continued for a while, Dan proposing ideas and Phil letting him know his opinion on those ideas and reassuring him whenever he thought something was lame or not the best. That same day, on the same call, Dan began writing a little script draft. He’d exchange ideas with Phil, who at the same time was writing down ideas for his own future videos. That one skype call went on for a while, it only ended when Dan’s family had gotten him to go downstairs to join them for a family dinner - for the first time in a while.  
After that though, Dan retreated back to upstairs. As usual, after getting into his pyjamas he called Phil and they’d have their night calls which always ended when them both asleep with the video call still going.   
The next day, Dan woke up to a dead laptop, obviously meaning their call unfortunately ended. After he put it on charge, he went downstairs and made himself a little breakfast of just cereal. While he ate, he thought about his video, deciding he was going to do it that day.  
He rushed his breakfast before running backstairs. Luckily his laptop has just turned back on. Due to the lack of a camera or a camcorder, Dan pulled up his laptop recording software. After about fifteen times of saying hi, the video begun and Dan did his best to do it all without fail. That, of course, didn’t happen though. He did mess up some stuff a lot purely due to worries. But thank god, due to the power of editing, he managed to act like that _never_ happened.

After constant stuttering, forgetting lines and annoying himself, Dan finished the video. He sat, cross legged on his bed with his laptop and began to edit. He took into account everything that Phil told him about editing, knowing where to cut clips and add filters. As soon as he finished, he went to YouTube and sat for a while with his mouse hovering over the ‘upload’ button, nervous to click it. In a quick swift movement, he clicked upload then called Phil from his phone as the red bar showed the process of the videos uploading. It didn’t take long for Phil to answer.

“Good morning!” Phil answered in a slightly sing-song tone.  
“Hey.” Dan whispered, voice dripping in anxiety. This caught Phil’s attention and immediately caused him to worry.  
“Bear, what’s happened? What’s wrong?” Phil asked cautiously and caring.  
“I-I did my video.. And posted it..” Dan whispered, the loading wheel now showing as his channel refreshed, the video sat there. Phil knew Dan was scared of being too much, or not enough, or too weird, or too boring. He knew it was scary to post a first video, but couldn’t even imagine posting a video now as there were more impressionable people there.  
“Hey, it’s all gonna be okay. Don’t sit on the website and wait, go read a book, watch someone elses videos, or a show. Then later go back and look at the positivity and response you got okay?” Phil said softly - in a voice he knew Dan would benefit from.  
“Yeah, okay. I’ll try.” Dan whispered. “Are you in Uni?” He asked, getting off of YouTube as he spoke.   
“Yeah I am, I need to go right now but I swear I’ll call you when I’m home, or try and text at least. My parents wanna do something tonight.” Phil sighed and frowned.  
“Okay, that’s okay. I’ll talk to you later. I love you.” Dan said quietly. He got an ‘I love you back’ before the call ended. 

Straight after the call, Phil went to twitter and posted about Dan’s videos, asking his own followers to check his ‘friend’ out. Dan didn’t know that as he kept himself distracted on Netflix.  
Around two hours after the video went live, Dan dared to go onto YouTube. He clicked his video, immediately pausing it to avoid having to listen to himself. He already had around a thousand views and to him, that was a hell of a lot. He couldn’t help but smile as he went through the comments.

_ ‘Amazing, Dan! Will be back for more’  
_ _ 'Woah, this is so funny! Just earned a new sub. Keep up the good work!’  
_ _ ‘Couldn’t stop laughing XD defineitly subscribing’  
_ __ ‘LOL! This is great! You and Phil should collab!’

Positive comments, upon positive comments, upon positive comments poured through, causing Dan’s heart to swell and race. He quickly picked up his phone to see a couple notifications.

_ ‘500 New Twitter followers.’  
_ _ ‘385 New Instagram follow requests.’  
_ __ ‘Phil <3: Did you see your video?’

Dan was quick to reply to Phil’s text, eager to show his happiness to his boyfriend who’d helped him every step of the way.

_ ‘Me: yes! I’m so happy!’  
_ _ 'Phil <3: What did I tell you? You’re amazing baby!’  
_ _ ‘Me: i love you so much, thank you!’  
_ _ ‘Phil <3: I love you too. You deserve all that love, honestly. What did I tell you?’  
_ _ ‘Me: it’s all gonna be okay?’  
_ _ 'Phil <3: Was I right?’  
_ __ ‘Me: of course.’


End file.
